Second Stand at the Tremont

Less than a year after Mayo's death his version of
Pudd'nhead was back on tour across America, now
produced by Jefferson & Mayo's Company (which included
his son, who played Sheriff Blake), and starring Theodore
Hamilton (referred to as an old stock company actor). By
May, 1897, it had arrived back in Boston. The announcement
below, which someone pasted into the front of one of the
Barrett Collection's copies of the novel Pudd'nhead
Wilson, was apparently cut out of a program from the
Tremont Theater. It refers to all the characters as stock
types, including Tom as "devilish and diabolical."

The play opened Monday night, May 3, and the next day
the Globe reviewed it briefly. Proceeds from the
opening night box office went to benefit the theater's
treasurer, a detail that furnished the reviewer with a
lead. This critic seems to associate the play with the
genre of nostalgic plantation tales: